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Loderunner rear changes started

As many of you know, I broke it this spring by overloading it by a large margin.

I didn't take pics showing where it broke, but I can describe. Where the main boom is welded to the rear box frame, I had been encountering a bit of frame flex. Cracks formed just ahead of the welds.

As I was cutting the damaged area out, I noted that the center pillow block mount tube was also developing cracks, allowing the mount to move forward and down when I applied too much pedal power.

That's a brief synopsis of the why, now for the how.

I have enlarged the box by 3" in both width and length, moved the axles back to approximately centered, and am building a truss arrangement for both center axle support, and to reinforce the main boom to box connection. the enlargement was needed to better accommodate the loads.

As an added bonus, this may be giving me a place to mount the new 250W motor, controller and batteries for electric assist.

Now it's pic time!

This is just the beginning. Rear box modified, and starting to tack the angle pieces in place.

I will be using the two bars as the lower chord of the truss. In these pics they are just being used to line up the angle sections.

The piece sticking up like a periscope will be cut off and welded in where it is, once I find the proper height for the bars with a plate for the center bearings.

All holes will be closed before painting. Later on during this rebuild, I will be updating and filling out the lights thread I started.